Story

Benedict's complicated legacy

by:Bernard Toutounji

From:
News Corp Australia Network

February 12, 20138:33AM

OVER coming weeks we will hear Pope Benedict being referred to as a conservative Pope who took a hard line on women priests and contraception, but the truth is every Pope has taken the exact same stance.

While it is acknowledged that about eight Popes across the last 2000 years have lived morally or politically corrupt lives on a personal level, no Pope has ever, in his office as Pope, contradicted the teaching of the Christian faith.

This is simply because the role of the Pope is less about making up rules than it is about preserving what is classically called the deposit of faith.

Happily, the vast majority of Popes have been holy Christian men, but in one sense that has been a bonus. The role of the papacy exists to ensure that the official faith given by Jesus Christ is passed on, in its entirety, to every generation.

So out of the one billion plus Catholics on earth no one has less room to move than the Pope.

A Pope is not able to wake up one morning and decide to drop the 6th commandment or add a fourth person to the Trinity. The Pope can create laws for the Church in a particular time and place, such as the tradition of a celibate priesthood which could be changed by any subsequent Pope.

The Pope cannot decide however to ordain women as priests, because most simply, Jesus did not do that and the Pope would be going beyond his mandate.

Popes are not liberal and Popes are not conservative; Popes can only pass on what was given to them.

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